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5 Vt. 218

Lovell v. Field

Supreme Court of Vermont

Decided January 15, 1833

Supreme Court of Vermont · decided 1833-01-15

This was an action on book account, which was submitted to auditors by the County Court, who made a special report of facts, and returned a balance in favor of the plaintiff By this report, it appears, that there was no objection to the items of the plaintiff; but objections were made to the plaintiff’s recovering at all, for reasons presented in the exceptions to the report, and again in exceptions to the decision of the County Court.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The administrator cannot promise to hind the estate for goods furnished for the benefit of the estate. The promise is his own, and he is personally liable. He may make it on the credit of the estate in his hands, hut whether he has a right to pay out of the same depends on its receiving the sanction of the probate court.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Kelley v. Kelley

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1833-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently April 1925

5 state decisions

201833184018501860187018801890190019101920decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Hutchinson, Ch. J.

¶1The supposed interest of the auditors in this case bears the wrong way to support the objection. The auditors were creditors of the estate, and they have allowed the whole of the plaintiff’s account against the defendants. If this created any interest, it would be an interest to disallow the claim in whole or in part, thereby to leave a larger fund for the payment of their own debts. The defendants might be benefited, but never *221could bo injured by Ibis interest. The objection, coming from them, cannot prevail. Had the plaintiff’s claim been disallowed in whole, or in part, and he had taken the exception, it would have deserved a different consideration. But nothing appears in the report, but that there is an ample fund to pay all the debts in any event; though the counsel suggest an insolvency of the estate. This, to have any effect, should appear as a fact found.

¶2The defendants further object, that they purchased these articles of the plaintiff’s account as administrators, and for the benefit of the estate ; and, therefore, are not liable as individuals, but only as administrators; and let execution come only against the estate of the deceased. No authorities are produced to show, that any other action than this would lie at all. Probably none can be found. The administrators may make contracts in their favor by sales of the property, or renting the real estate; and upon these they may maintain actions in their own names, without ad-ding administrators; or they may declare as administrators, and recover in either of these ways : and the addition in the last case shows their accountability to the estate for the avails of the suit. But the administrators cannot promise to bind the estate in the way now contended for. The promise is their own, and they are personally liable. They may make it on the credit of the estate in their hands ; but whether they have a right to pay out of the same, depends upon its being so beneficial to the estate as to receive the sanction of the Probate Court.

¶3The third, and last objection, rests on the point of an agreement of plaintiff to wait for his pay, till the estate should be settled. There is no doubt that an agreement for a future pay-day may be so made, that no action can be maintained for the demand,#till such pay-day has arrived. But the plaintiff contends, that this agreement is void by its describing a pay-day that never can arrive; for, if this claim was to be paid out of the estate, the payment of it must precede a final settlement; and further, that the defendants might never settle, and thus keep off the time of payment. Probably a rational construction of such an agreement would avoid these difficulties. The construction should be, when the estate is so far settled as to render it *222proper that the administrators should be paying the debts, or have obtained an order of the Probate Court for such payment. If the administrators neglect their duty and seek occasion for delay of payment, the construction should be, that there be a reasonable time for the estate to be so settled, as that the debts can be paid with safety and propriety.

Philip C. Tucker, for the defendants.Wooclbridge & Son, for the plaintiff.

¶4But a further answer to this objection is very conclusive. The auditors have not reported any such agreement to wait for the pay. They report that one of the defendants testified to such an agreement, but they also report, that the plaintiff as absolutely testified, that there was no such agreement. This was a matter of proof before the auditors, and their report shows, that they did not find the fact proved. It would have been more cdrrect for them to have said nothing about the testimony, or who testified about the fact, unless to present an objection to testimony, which does not appear in this case ; but merely have stated, that the defendants contended for such an agreement, but the same was not proved.

¶5It is now urged, that the defendants were not competent witnesses to prove such an agreement. There appears to have been no objection of this kind raised before the auditors, and it is too late to raise it Jn objection to their report. But, if the objection had been raised in season, it must have been overruled, according to the doctrine of the case of Truesdell vs. Stevens, in Aikens’ Rep. The defendant was admissible to show the debt not due when the action was commenced. But the plaintiff’s testimony exactly contradicting that of the defendant who testified, the whole was neutralized.

¶6The judgement of the County Court is affirmed.

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